Requiem for a Realtor (28 page)

“Mrs. Sawyer,” he called, and she turned. She began to smile but settled for a frown.

“I wonder if we could talk.”

She settled herself where she stood. “Yes?”

“I didn't mean here. Would you care for coffee?”

“At the moment I would like something stronger.”

So it was that Father Dowling found himself in the sports bar across from the courthouse, sipping his coffee while Susan Sawyer drank half her martini on the first try. She put the glass on the table and sighed.

“I thought that session would never end.”

“It is good of you to attend.”

“Murdstone insists on it, for whatever good it does. George has stopped speaking. I think he has decided to withdraw into himself. A kind of autism.”

“What must it be like to be put on trial if you really are innocent of the charge?”

“His plea is not guilty, of course.”

“With all that evidence against him, it does seem hopeless.”

“Oh, they wouldn't let him plead guilty.”

“Are you serious that he won't speak to you?”

“Father, I don't blame him. He is like a cornered animal.”

“Do you think that he killed Bob Oliver?”

She drank some more. “Father, we went through this before. It doesn't matter what I think.”

“How well did you know Bob Oliver?'

She tucked in her chin and looked at him over her glasses. “How well?”

“His photographer took this picture of you with him.” He slid a large black-and-white photo from the manila envelope he had brought. Susan stared at it.

“I don't know anything about that picture.” She peered at it as if unsure she was the woman embracing Bob Oliver.

“Apparently the photographer took these just to finish up a roll. There are six or eight of them in all.”

“Why did she give them to you?”

“She didn't. They are the fruit of a series of inquiries.”

“Inquiries about what?”

Father Dowling turned his coffee mug ninety degrees. “If your husband is accused of killing Bob Oliver, some motive has to be provided.”

“Motive? He was mad at him for snooping around the agency offices.”

“That angered you, too, didn't it?”

“Of course it did. How would you like someone invading your rectory and snooping around, taking pictures?” She glanced at the photograph before her.

“Shirley told me how upset you were.”

“Shirley!”

Father Dowling nodded. “What I've tried to do is imagine some other explanation for all the damning evidence against your husband. Someone goes to the agency and returns the key used to start Stanley Collins's car. Later that same person will return the moccasins borrowed from your husband's office on the same occasion. The moccasins that left their imprint on the floor of the truck.”

“And who would that someone be?”

“She would have to have access to his handkerchiefs, of course.”

“‘She'?”

“Would you like another of those?”

“I'm fine. Thank you.”

“I can understand how, out of passion, you would have run down Bob Oliver, but to incriminate your husband…”

In the noisy bar they might have been talking of anything. Susan straightened in her chair.

“I hope you don't intend to tell anyone that fantastic story.”

“Your fingerprints on the ignition key would not prove much, perhaps. Or even one or two in Stanley's car. But in the cab of the truck…”

“There weren't any fingerprints.”

“Because you had wiped them away.”

“Are you actually accusing me of killing Bob Oliver?”

We cannot read the minds of others, but the eyes have been called the windows of the soul. Father Dowling had a brief glimpse of the tortured soul of Susan Sawyer.

“Yes, I am. And Stanley Collins, too. The question is, what are you going to do about it?”

After a moment she stood and looked down at him, her expression calm but icy.

“Thank you for the martini.”

He rose, and together they left the bar.

“Can I give you a lift?”

“I have my car.”

Parked across the street as was his. Traffic came in bursts, in response to the change of the traffic light at the corner to their left. While they waited, Father Dowling was filled with a sense of futility. His hunch had turned up the photograph linking Susan Sawyer to the unfortunate Bob Oliver, but he had played that card and been trumped by her cool dismissal of it. But, of course, a woman capable of what he was now certain she had done would be prepared to brazen out his accusation.

“You can't let someone else suffer for your sins.”

She turned and looked at him scornfully. “I thought that was the whole idea.”

She turned away and stepped into the street in what seemed a lull in the traffic. Suddenly a car that had rounded the corner on the red light accelerated to make the green at the next corner. Father Dowling grabbed Susan Sawyer's arm and pulled her out of harm's way. The car came to a stop where she had been. She turned to him ashen faced and came trembling into his arms. The sound of the braking car caused her to unravel, and what he had said in the bar had its belated effect. She looked at him, a woman no longer able to conceal the dreadful things she had done. When she stepped back from him, he said, “Why don't we have a talk with Lieutenant Horvath?”

She bit her lip, but her recent escape from the fate she had contrived for Stanley and Bob Oliver overcame her. It must have struck her as a quasi-divine judgment on what she had done. She nodded and turned away. He took her arm and led her safely across the street.

15

When Father Dowling ushered Susan Sawyer into Cy's office she immediately slumped into a chair.

“Mrs. Sawyer has something to say to you, Cy.”

Cy took the envelope the priest gave him.

“It's a photograph. She'll explain.”

Cy looked at the photograph of Susan Sawyer and Bob Oliver and immediately realized its significance, helped by Mrs. Sawyer's defeated expression.

“She's had a harrowing experience.”

“I could have been run over…” Her voice trailed off.

“Tell me about it.”

She began to speak in a dull voice, putting recent events in a new and intelligible light. Father Dowling took advantage of a pause to say he would leave them now.

“We can talk again later,” he said to Mrs. Sawyer.

She nodded. She seemed reluctant to have Father Dowling leave. So was Cy, in a way, but now was the moment of justice. Mercy could wait. He felt a bit like a priest himself as he listened to her half-hysterical confession.

*   *   *

Susan Sawyer's confession prompted Zola to postpone the trial of George Sawyer and Murdstone succeeded in getting him out on bail. A grateful press filled its pages and airwaves with the story. Within a week Susan was taking the psychological tests that would establish that she was unfit to stand trial.

“Temporary insanity,” Amos Cadbury said, lifting his snow-white brows. “Temporary.”

When Father Dowling visited Susan the first time, she refused to talk to him. Even so, he spoke to her softly of divine mercy, planting a seed he hoped would take root. As if in confirmation of Tetzel's heated series, Susan seemed almost relieved to have been caught. Her confession had been detailed. She had availed herself of two keys to Stanley's car, one taken from Phyllis, the other from the office, both of which she had returned.

“Why did she do that?” Amos wondered.

“Ask Tetzel.”

Amos made an impatient noise.

They were seated in the dining room of the rectory, and now Marie came in with the food, eliciting unstinted anticipatory praise from the venerable lawyer. Amos understood that Marie was not to be told of Father Dowling's role in the hiring of Parker the private investigator.

“It had to be one or the other of them,” Marie said.

“How do you mean?” Amos asked.

“Phyllis Collins or Susan Sawyer. Imagine, having an affair with her husband's partner.” Marie shook her head at the folly of mankind. “Well,
cherchez la femme.
”

“I thought you suspected David Jameson, Marie.”

She looked patiently at Father Dowling. “He would never have the nerve.”

David Jameson had informed Father Dowling at great length that he no longer aspired to be a permanent deacon. “My volunteer work in the senior center more than satisfies my pastoral instinct.”

He was now engaged to Bridget, and it was as a concession to her friend that Edna suffered the Wednesday presence of Jameson in the center.

“Most of the people he tries to counsel want to talk about their teeth.”

“Wisdom teeth?”

Edna ignored the remark. Wise woman.

After Susan was institutionalized, George Sawyer and Phyllis went off on a cruise together.

“I hope there's a chaplain aboard,” Marie said.

“Ship captains can perform wedding ceremonies,” Father Dowling said.

“What good is that?”

Since the Sawyers did not intend to remain in Fox River, Father Dowling did not tell Marie of the nuptial Mass he had said for Phyllis and George in the chapel of the Athanasian Fathers. Counseled, it seemed, by Jameson, George had obtained a scandalously rapid anullment. Whatever his personal thoughts on that, Father Dowling did not choose to be more Catholic than the Church and had agreed to preside at the wedding. Marie assumed he had gone off for his monthly day of recollection. He did have some time for recollection after the happy couple drove away.

The one person who seemed genuinely moved by the deaths of Stanley Collins and Bob Oliver was Shirley Escalante. She was closing up the agency office when Father Dowling visited her. On her desk was a framed photograph of herself and Bob Oliver, a gift from Sylvia Woods. Phyllis had been enriched by these tragic events, and George Sawyer had joined his insurance money to her fortune. Would they live happily ever after? Bridget and David Jameson were in the process of planning an elaborate wedding at which Father Dowling would preside. Only Shirley seemed devastated by events.

She sat behind her desk, surrounded by the cartons she had filled from the contents of the file cabinet. She seemed a widow of sorts.

“What will you do now, Shirley?”

She looked at Father Dowling with moist eyes.

“I can't afford a cruise.” She tried to laugh. “It doesn't make much sense, but I will miss working here.”

“Are you looking for another position?”

“Oh I have several offers. I'll be all right.”

And she would be. Father Dowling was sure of it. She had returned to the religion of her fathers as if stimulated by the perfidy of her former employers. The communion of saints is a communion of sinners, too, repentant sinners. Loyal, efficient Shirley Escalante was one clear beneficiary of what had happened as she presided over the requiem of the Realtor for whom she had worked.

Also by Ralph McInerny

Mysteries Set at the University of Notre Dame

On This Rockne

Lack of the Irish

Irish Tenure

Book of Kills

Emerald Aisle

Celt and Pepper

Irish Coffee

 

Father Dowling Mystery Series

Her Death of Cold

The Seventh Station

Bishop as Pawn

Lying Three

Second Vespers

Thicker Than Water

A Loss of Patients

The Grass Widow

Getting a Way with Murder

Rest in Pieces

The Basket Case

Abracadaver

Four on the Floor

Judas Priest

Desert Sinner

Seed of Doubt

A Cardinal Offense

The Tears of Things

Grave Undertakings

Triple Pursuit

Prodigal Father

Last Things

 

Andrew Broom Mystery Series

Cause and Effect

Body and Soul

Savings and Loam

Mom and Dead

Law and Ardor

Heirs and Parents

REQUIEM FOR A REALTOR.
Copyright © 2004 by Ralph McInerny. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.minotaurbooks.com

ISBN 0-312-32417-0

EAN 978-0312-32417-9

First Edition: July 2004

eISBN 9781466841970

First eBook edition: March 2013